In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Thursday, September 13, 2012

A taxonomy of human intellect

My
reading room is 11 X 9 feet. The wall on the left contains built-in-wall
shelves measuring 10.5 X 3.4 inches. Against the front wall are placed two
steel almirahs. They are all full of books, old, new, and on various subjects.
Their number is irrelevant to the purpose of the present writing. Apart from
technical subjects such as relating to physical, scientific and technological disciplines,
I have books about many subjects and disciplines.

Let
me make it clear: my passion is Philosophy, Literature and History. So, books
on these subjects abound.

All
these books were there randomly stuffed in various shelves. Not most of the
times, but some of the times when I required a book, it used to take undue time
to find it out of the heap. Also, my mind did not display all the books I had
in my personal library, and when looking for a book I came to know I have
already got this or that book was a surprising discovery, a pleasant finding.

But
time matters (though philosophically I am all for Space), and I thought of
arranging them or as the librarians say, cataloguing them. It was not possible
as they do it in libraries where sufficient space is available, and of course,
my personal library does not contain books on all or most of the subjects and
disciplines.

Then,
I thought of creating a new classification or categorization of these books, or
a new way of cataloguing them.

My
love for books is unquenchable and given a chance I would like to collect all
the good books on philosophy, literature, and history. And, no doubt, on many
other subjects which may attract one now and then.

However,
for a number of reasons, this is neither advisable nor possible. There are
great public libraries which one may take advantage of; though not a single
such library exists in Pakistan. And, now there are electronic books. As I am a
very backward and conservative reader, I still like books in PDF format. In the
case of e-books, the issue of space has lost its genuine thrust; now as much
space can be created as we need.

Haven’t
we succeeded in creating a space of our own? We have created a “virtual space”
which is infinite, unlimited, as we can create as much space as we require or
wish. And, if words and punctuations were creatures, they would be bound to
think, ‘We live in an infinite space.’

Also,
as we have created History, or better say, Plane of History, on which or upon
which we live, create and procreate; thus, in turn, we continue creating and
re-creating History, and ourselves.

Back
to the point:

It
was easier to sort out books on literature, and I put a label, LITERATURE on
the shelves collecting poetry and fiction therein.

For
instance:

Doctor
Faustus, by Marlowe

The
Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

Moby
Dick, by Herman Melville

کلیاتِ میر

کلیاتِ غالب

توبہ توبہ، واجدہ تبسم

As
for the books on philosophy, there was no issue; I put them in one place under
the tag, PHILOSOPHY.

Such
as:

Indian
Philosophy, Volume I & II, by Radhakrishnan

Rights
of Man, by Thomas Paine

An Autobiography,
by R. G. Collingwook

The
Dialogues of Plato

On
Liberty & Utilitarianism, by J. S. Mill

The
3rd clearest category is HISTORY.

Though,
for my own convenience, I put books on ARTS & LITERARY CRITICISM
separately, but I bundled them under PHILOSOPHY.

Likewise,
there are shelves labeled as MARXIST STUDIES, and LIBERTARIAN STUDIES. They
belong to PHILOSOPHY.

And,
due to my special focus, one shelf contains books on the FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND
THE CONSTITUTION OF PAKISTAN.

Similarly,
a shelf contains books on ISLAMIC STUDIES, another on PAKISTAN STUDIES. And,
yet another is labeled as HISTORICAL STUDIES.

I
think books arranged in all the above shelves fall under PHILOSOPHY or HISTORY
or both.

A
good many number of books are on economic science, and other social sciences,
and also some on physical sciences such as biology, e.g.:

The
Human Mystery, by John C, Eccles

But
they cannot be termed books on these disciplines; they deal with Problems which
are linked to many disciplines.

Let
me quote Karl Popper here. He said something like that we are not students of
subjects or disciplines, we are students of problems and problems can overlap
right across many disciplines.

I
tend to put all those books mentioned above under PHILOSOPHY, as all such disciplines
somehow originated or were derived from PHILOSOPHY, or take inspiration and
guidance from PHILOSOPHY.

In
addition to these books, there were some which I found difficult to put under
this or that label, such as PHILOSOPHY or HISTORY. Neither can they be
relegated to LITERATURE, though they possess literary merits.

The
Psalm of Peace – An English Translation of Guru Arjun’s ‘Sukhmani’, by Teja
Singh

These
books and others like them put me in a fix: where to categorize them? After
intense thinking trying to focus on the human intellect, I came to decide to
label them with entirely a new nomenclature: WISDOM.

During
and in this process, I was very much clear about one thing: whatever human
beings have produced is a manifestation of human intellect. Thus I thought of
categorizing books in my personal library under a classification based on
broader manifestations of human intellect.

To
me, LITERATURE is a great manifestation of human intellect. Arts, poetry and
fiction, and many other forms of literature present a separate category,
different from PHILOSOPHY, and HISTORY.

No
doubt, since by virtue of being manifestations of human intellect they all meet
at certain points, however, it is human intellect itself which see them as
qualitatively separate entities.

It
may be surmised: everything relaxes back to from where it originates. That is as
true of all the manifestations of human intellect. That is why no absolute
separation can be effected between them.

ARTS
AND LITERATURE here and there face PHILOSOPHY, or walk with HISTORY.

WISDOM
derives inspiration from all other manifestations of human intellect.

HISTORY
is helped by ARTS AND LITERATURE, and PHILOSOPHY also.

This
is how I thought of arranging my books, and after devising this taxonomy I arranged
them accordingly. What prompted me to think in this way was the limited space
available to my books!

Though
presently there have appeared electronic books, talking books, etc., but human
beings’ fascination with the traditional books printed on paper, I think or I
wish, is not going to vanish with time, or with technology. No arguments! Let’s
see what comes out!

This
is the last point, at least for now, in my thinking on this taxonomy of human
intellect that put me again in a fix: Technology is shaping or transforming the
shapes of the books to come, and Technology itself is such a subject or
discipline, or with whatever name it may be denoted, which is in a flux, one
like that of Heraclitus. The important thing about Technology is: not only is
it changing everything, it is itself a-changing. What to categorize it with,
then? With PHILOSOPHY? Or with what? Or it needs inventing a new nomenclature
to be classified with!

I
feel inclined to put it under HISTORY. Why? Because I see that it is here and
it is past now.

What
ultimate role Technology plays or is playing determines its status: it is
accelerating HISTORY.

It
is turning the “slow motion picture of human life in this world,” the
kaleidoscope of olden times, into a “fast moving video.”

It
has changed the character of HISTORY altogether. From appearing on celluloid,
HISTORY now slides on digital media.

On
this, these are my initial thoughts, not final in any sense. The case of
Technology is a tough one; it defies traditional way of classification; it is
more than a boundary line case!

1 comment:

At this point in time, the collective human evolution has reached to a very enriched state. We require new words that can describe various new disciplines, discoveries, and advances we have made , as a result of which new subjects of studies (till now overlapping in definitions) have come into existance. We should try to phrase some new words, at least in English language as it allows more space in it's flexibility.

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.